So, what about those recent reprints of early volumes...

I'm new here. I've been collecting Geographics for just a couple of years, but I've been lucky enough to acquire in fairly quick succession sets that went back to 1947, 1930 and, finally (for now!) 1910, which I'm rather happy with, especially considering issues prior to 1950 or so are a bit thin on the ground here in Europe - I'm in Belgium.

Anyway. If you don't mind, I'd like to use my first contribution here to ask a question about recent reprints of early issues (covering roughly the first thirty years of the magazine). Looking on Amazon it appears these have manifested themselves only over the last five years or so and it looks like they are being published by a variety of print-on-demand type presses. Are these publications worth the money? It wouldn't surprise me if they had been sourced from the DVD-ROM editions, which look acceptable on screen but are just not good enough to use in print.

Has anyone here seen some of these reprints 'in the flesh'? What are they like?
Thanks. :-)

Are you talking about the Kessinger Legacy Reprints? If you are, I would NOT consider them as a good "filler" for missing or hard to find originals in a collection. Most collectors (myself included) only buy reprints that were printed by the National Geographic Society back in the early 1960's, covering only the years 1888 to 1907 They look exactly like the originals. They are more expensive than the Legacy reprints but they are REAL National Geographics. I, like Mel, have never seen a Legacy reprint.

Thanks for the welcome and the replies. :-) I realize the recent reprints perhaps can't be considered "real" Geographics, but I think I'm right in saying that even the 1960s reprints can be fairly expensive these days - at least much more expensive than the recent ones. It all depends how much you're prepared/able to spend on these early years, of course.

I've done a bit of searching and Kessinger appear to be one of the companies doing these reprints, but they're not the only ones. I might try to test the waters by buying just one volume, although I have to admit one of the things stopping me is that I haven't so far come across a recent reprint job with all consecutive volumes for a certain period of time. Instead, it looks as if some "publishers" just offer the odd volume. Weird indeed. Of course if I would decide to try out one of these reprints, I'll report back.

On a more positive note, I spent some time today arranging the 1910 collection on the shelves. Much of the work actually consists of putting other material somewhere else to clear the necessary space. :-) The original collector really made an effort with his Geographics. Inside a 1916 issue, I found a reply from the Society to a letter he'd sent them, inquiring about certain advertisement details for the issue.

There's also a copy of Buxbaum's collector's guide (I understand he has a certain reputation among Geographic enthousiasts; I also noticed his 1962 price list that was published here a few days ago) and between the pages of this book I found some more letters. One dated from 1989 and detailed issues the collector had requested, followed by a more personal message from Jeanne Buxbaum, who wrote her husband had died. Rather touchingly, there was a further letter from the collector, written in 1998 to the Society asking whether they knew anything about Jeanne; a Christmas card the collector had sent to her had been returned undeliverable. I don't know whether the Society replied to this letter; in any case, there's none in the book. All in all rather fascinating material. When I went to collect the magazines, there were two ordners marked "Geographic correspondance". I decided it would be wrong to take them (correspondance is personal, after all) but I'm starting to regret it now...

Thinks for those links, I've put these issues in my Ebay 'watch list' to see for how much they'll go eventually.

I had already 'saved' some bound volumes that precede my 1910 collection, and the rather low selling prices for these are a pleasant surprise.

1905 sold for $44

1906 with $25 starting price didn't sell

1907 sold for $102 (I'm guessing that's mainly because it's one of those often used cover types - not the airplane version but another cover that seems to turn up frequently)

1908 with $25 starting price didn't sell.

I think I'm right in saying the extensive use of photographs started around 1905 so if I could extend my collection at least to that point that would already be quite thrilling. Looks like I might be able to get the whole 1905-1909 period in bound volumes for one hundred dollars or so, if I play my cards right. I'll keep an eye on things...

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